Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2023 January 5

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January 5

Help with Chrome

Question and response moved from "Help with chrome" Mikenorton (talk) 13:17, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

So normally everyday I use my Windows Tablet for editing and doing general maintence. The past week or so, every time I user Chrome, I get it freezing up either trying to open wiki page, to type a response, or even run of the mill CU tasks. It doesn't matter how many tabs I have open, it's happening consitently now. I have tried to crash and burn Chrome (factory reset) - no change. I can switch over to firefox with the quick switch of windows. Firefox does not have similiar issues, and runs my IRCCloud. Any advice anyone can give? This is doubling the time to make my edits. -- Amanda (she/her) 12:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@AmandaNP I had the same issue a couple of weeks ago and I was able to fix it by turning off "Enhanced spell check" in Settings → Languages. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 13:04, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Something about Enhanced spell check on Chrome breaks any number of sites, extensions, and apps to not function Nosebagbear (talk) 14:20, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ and Nosebagbear: Thank you for the suggestions. I had actually turned off spell check completely a few days ago because of my own spell check software. Turned it back on today to basic spell check and it fixed the issue 100%. Dunno why Chrome is so adamant that we are forced to use only it's basic spell checker. -- Amanda (she/her) 00:44, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Linux Two Monitors on One Card Problem

We have two video editing stations. They have one computer with one video card and two monitors. I am sure it is one card because on the back, there is a stack of rectangle slots and both monitors are plugged into the same slot. One is HDMI and the other is Display Port (I think, because it is like HDMI with one side squared off). On both computers, the Display Port monitor randomly turns black for a second and then turns back on. I switched the monitors and the problem stayed with the monitor connected to the Display Port using a Display Port to HDMI connector. The monitor using HDMI to HDMI never goes black. I've updated the drivers, which are NVidia drivers. I rebooted. I've been asking various Q&A websites and doing everything suggested, so the list of what I've done is very long. Most people ask what we are using. Using their instructions, I have this: It is an HP computer with an Intel I7 4 core CPU and 8 GB memory. The video card is NVidia GM204 GEForce GTX 970. Both monitors are set for 1920x1080 resolution at 60 Hz, which is the HP 22cwa monitor default. While the blinking off is an annoyance, the video editing stations are still used often. Our IT guy says we probably need a better video card, but we can't purchase that. We have to purchase entire computers. That is why I'm trying to figure out how to fix the problem without purchasing a new video card. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 14:35, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm driving two 1920x1080 monitors, and a 1440x900, all off a GTX950 in Ubuntu Linux. Performance, including video playback and some light gaming, is fine. To configure them, I just have the nVidia proprietary driver v510 (I think I tried the recent v525 driver and it didn't work for me). To set up the monitors, I run nvidia-settings and look in the "X Server Display Configuration" tab. I've never needed to do anything fancier than that. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 16:24, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. From another help website, it was suggested that the cable may be inferior, which causes the monitor to randomly resync. I think that will be something cheap to check, so I've requested a new cable to try on one computer and, if it works, I will try it on another. I only just discovered that cables come with Hz ratings. Ours are 30 Hz and I'm ordering 60 Hz cables. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 13:18, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Looking at mine, the three monitors are connected thus: the small one by DVI-I (directly), one by HDMI (using a cheap HDMI->VGA translator), and one by DisplayPort (using a cheap DP->VGA translator). Looking at the Amazon order, the translators cost £6 each. In previous years, the vertical refresh did cause issues (because the small monitor has a vertical rate of 59.89 Hz and the others 60Hz) - every few seconds the "slower" one would jump (presumably to catch back up). But later versions of the nVidia driver seem to have resolved this, and it's solid as a rock. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:56, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The Hz ratings on cables are mostly marketing. But usually, a cable marked as 60 Hz will be better quality than one marked 30 Hz. However, I don't recall ever seeing a monitor running at 30 Hz, or a video card sending a signal with that refresh rate. Having said all that, I hope your new cable fixes the issue. If not, look inside the computer to make sure the video card is fully seated in the slot (connector). David10244 (talk) 09:46, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I went to Staples and got a new cable on Saturday and swapped out the old one. That station has run since then without the monitor turning black. The other station still turns black every few minutes, just for about 5 seconds. So, I will get a second cable and how this fixes the problem. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 15:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

In case anyone cares, I replaced the cable on the second station. Neither one blinks off now. So, I believe that the monitor blinking black problem was a cable issue. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 13:23, 11 January 2023 (UTC)